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DEVELOPMENT: ‘Debt for Science’, Urges Brazil

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 1 2003 (IPS) - A portion of developing countries’ foreign debt payments should be channelled towards investments in their own national education, science and technology programmes, says Brazilian minister Roberto Amaral.

Amaral outlined the initiative during his opening address to the third session of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST), a body founded in 1997 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

UNESCO could guide debate about this approach, suggested the Brazilian science and technology minister, because it is an "international institution that is respected and beyond suspicion," which would foment dialogue.

The idea is to promote technological progress in debtor countries, without which "we won’t develop and in the long term won’t be able to pay the debts," he told the gathering here Monday.

This is one of the matters that Brazil will formally submit to the COMEST meeting, which lasts through Thursday, and also to the meetings of South American ministers of science and technology and ministers of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries, which are to take place that same day.

For Brazil, the conversion of a portion of its foreign debt would bring great relief, said Amaral, because the public universities are suffering serious infrastructural deterioration due to lack of funding – and they are responsible for 90 percent of the country’s scientific research.

Marcio Barbosa, deputy director general of UNESCO, told a press conference Monday that the U.N. body is not independent, but rather an organisation of countries that acts if it has a mandate from its members, and could "embrace" the Brazilian proposal if it proves of interest to all.

COMEST, which holds consultative status with UNESCO, for the first time is holding its sessions in a developing country. Brazil was chosen for its "successful experiences, which break down paradigms and can be applied in other countries," and because the new government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is currently "seeking solutions for chronic development problems," said the U.N. official.

Furthermore, UNESCO is working to decentralise its activities, moving closer to countries and regions like Latin America, where it is crucial to promote education and science, Barbosa added.

COMEST is made up of 18 experts from a range of countries and with diverse areas of expertise, including legal and religious. Their mandate is to formulate the ethical principles that should guide scientific and technological activities. Four subcommissions have been set up: on ethics in the use of freshwater, outer space, energy, and what has become known as the "information society".

A subcommission on bioethics is not planned, even though issues like cloning and genetically modified organisms are controversial topics, because UNESCO already has a specific committee on the matter, COMEST chairman Jens Eric Fenstad told IPS.

In addition to the four themes of the subcommissions, ethics in nanotechnology and environmental sustainability are also of concern to COMEST, whose objective is to "renew the social contract between society and science" as a necessity for dealing with the scientific advances and uncertainties generated in recent decades, said Fenstad.

"Nothing is more unethical than hunger," said minister Amaral, explaining that Brazil is troubled by the exclusion of a large portion of humanity from the benefits of science and about "the commercial and political obstacles" that block the transfer of technology to developing countries – which could contribute to fighting hunger.

In many cases the countries that possess these technologies – often of multiple uses, such as nuclear, space and computer technologies – do not even allow others to purchase them.

Controls are justified for questions of national security, but "they are clearly extended to the commercial arena," preventing other countries from gaining entry to the "exclusive technological club" or being able to compete for markets, commented Amaral.

Brazil has submitted to the monitoring regimen of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a multilateral body, but did not gain access to technologies that it seeks because the nuclear powers keep tight political control over them for strategic ends, he said.

The minister called attention to the division that "increasingly separates people between the holders of science and technology on the one side, and on the other those who are excluded from knowledge, technology and training," deeper and more insurmountable than the internal inequalities of the developing world.